1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to sharing of an image, and, more particularly, to a method, apparatus and system for providing remote access of images.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been various advancements in the area of image capture technology for capturing images and processing them in a computer system. Image capture includes capturing of images processed by cameras and scanners. Generally, images are downloaded onto a computer, such as a Macintosh® computer system, and a user may browse through the various images captured by the camera or the scanner. The state-of-the-art generally calls for downloading the data relating to the capturing of images from a scanner or a camera. This requires the user to have immediate access to the computer system coupled to the camera or scanner, which requires access to the computer system. Additionally, the state-of-the-art generally requires that the computer coupled to the camera or the scanner have sufficient available resources to perform the downloading of the images. Therefore, processing and sharing various images can be made difficult.
There have also been various advancements in communications between computer systems. Networks, such as the Internet, intranets, or other private or public networks, are ubiquitous. In fact, many computers are connected to one or more networks at the same time. For example, a business may have hundreds or even thousands of computers coupled to its own private network, which was, at least initially, used primarily for storage and exchange of computer files. At least some of these same business computers may also be coupled to the Internet. Further, with the development of wireless devices, ad hoc networks may also be formed with properly configured portable devices. Even telephonic devices, such as cellular phones, pagers and the like, may be coupled to one or more of these networks. Small businesses and homes are also often connected in similar arrangements.
All of this connectivity has naturally led to communications between various users over these networks. For example, electronic mail (e-mail), because of its usefulness, is now commonplace. Other communications and computer technologies offer the possibility of accessing the content of one computer from a remote, second computer. Therefore, the natural evolution of technological advances may be directed toward providing a second computer system with capability to access an image that may be processed by a first computer system. State-of-the-art technology relating to such sharing calls for downloading an image onto a first computer and then providing digital data communications to a second computer system for performing image sharing. Developers have implemented Internet-based cameras (“web cams”) that may acquire various images to be downloaded onto a first computer and then made accessible by a second computer. However, these systems generally provide for relatively low-resolution images that are downloaded onto a computer and then accessed by other computers.
Additionally, the second computer, which may be a client computer wherein the computer that acquires the images may be a server computer, may call for the implementation of on-line applications or device drivers that would communicate with the server computer. Additionally, the server computer may also need special drivers for allowing such communications. However, all of these implementations call for downloading various images onto the server computer and then making those images available for other computers. The industry generally lacks a more efficient manner of performing image file sharing.
The present invention is directed to overcoming or at least reducing one or more of the problems set forth above.